On Eventbrite

 
Date was in my diary - now booked. I have a powerchair....

 
I, too, have booked my seat. I encourage any of our members also to do so.

It's free, informal, and you do get to meet some very interesting people*, and you can have constructive discussions, in the course of the day.

The venue is on a level access route, within sight of Taunton Station. For those not now driving Formula 1, disabled access assistance can be arranged.

CfN. 


* Excepting me, obviously.

 
Another attractive quality, the venue's built on the tail of the site of the first of the Grand Western Canal's boat lifts, a not entirely successful structure which survived, out of use, long enough to be recorded on a 1:500 Ordnance Survey town plan.

Surprisingly, west of the venue, canal era masonry survives almost as far as the approach to the long vanished aqueduct that took it across what became Station Road. Unfortunately no photographs survive of these relics.

Mark

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=19.2&lat=51.02205&lon=-3.10262&layers=117746211a&b=GoogleSat&o=100

 

What about those of us who aren't retired?

Of course I understand it has to be in working hours, but it does make it more difficult to attend just because it sounds like a nice day out.

 
Hmm. That's an interesting question, matth1j, and it has been raised on previous occasions.

I will leave it to my boss, grahame, to answer specifically, as he is much better informed on the public meeting date and venue selection process at TravelWatch SouthWest.

CfN. 

 


It has indeed been raised before - but it's good to consider from time to time whether the current general meetings arrangements are the right ones, especially as metrics change.

There is no perfect date, location, frequency. 

Current logic is that the meetings are held in the middle of the patch - Swindon to Penzance, Bournemouth to Ashchurch, and all points between, and to be accessible (in all meanings of that wording) by public transport.  Which rather brings us to somewhere in the Taunton / Tiverton / Exeter area;  meetings have been held in Taunton and Exeter, none to my knowledge in Tiverton - I don't know that there's a suitable venue near the station there.  At Taunton there are several venues in sensible reach from the station; memories of Exeter meetings is that they have been nearer to Central than to St Davids.

Meetings are held in the middle of the day too, so that people can travel there are back home without too early a start or too late a finish; an early start means higher (peak) fares and for some who have to start off with a bus to the station or are coming from separated / awkward places (Bude, Moreton-in-Marsh, Ludgershall, Christchurch for example) it can be peak-expensive or impossible to start earlier.   Getting home similarly rules out evenings.

Now - the thorny question of "which day".   The meetings are targetted to attract multiple groupings.  The transport industry management professionals and contractors. Local and national government officers an responsible elected officials, including MPs.  Academics from travel and transport departments and think tanks.   Representatives of community and user and special interest groups. And interested independents who perhaps don't fit in to those categories such as lone or new group campaigners.   Friday - on past consideration - has been the best of an imperfect set of options.   Look at each of those groups and you would loose significant numbers of people employed and coming as part of their Monday to Friday job - and indeed for them, where they have to make a decision to come Friday sits well because is doesn't break up their week. We would love to have a time for those in employment of college on Mondays to Fridays during the working week - really love to ... However, with the meeting being primarily for user group leads / reps, they tend to have the enthusiasm and flexibility to take a couple of days off each year to come along; rather a different metric than a local user group which will tend to fall better to an evening or even at a fete at the weekend.

Virtually no thought has been given to changing frequency - annually is probably too little, quarterly too much and adds the hazard that the other meeting could hit Christmas and summer holiday issues. There have been some specialist online / Zoom / Teams event though they donut encourage the same networking and as with nearly evenything else transport there's a question of where TWSW fits and how it finances into the future.

There ... is the logic.  Like a say, it's not set in stone (for next month, it IS because of bookings and giving good notice) but I know there will be a serious TWSW board discussion before the March '26 meeting is set.  All things being equal I would getting a Friday, middle of the day, again - but any alternative suggestions, especially with your inputs as to how we might reach all the various groups, will be looked at very seriously.  And also please note that there are a lot of "regular"s - if we were to change the day / timing during the day, some would no longer b able to come (they have told us that in the past)

Edit - to add the frequency and financing paragraph


 

 
Thank you for your very detailed answer, grahame. 

Purely for information: before I retired, I also wouldn't have been able to attend any such meeting on a Friday.  It suited me to agree with my employer that I would work every Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  So any weekend meeting would have been similarly difficult for me to attend.

I agree with grahame - there is no ideal day of the seven day week that works for everyone. However, with sufficient advance notice, many of us (retired or otherwise) will hopefully be able to make arrangements.

CfN.